In 1893 Paris, La Môme Pistache, the proud owner of a Montmartre dancehall, battles with Aristide Forestiere, a self-righteous judge determined to close all establishments featuring the scandalous cancan. Eventually, the two fall in love, and the judge concedes that “obscenity is in the eye of the beholder.”

CAN-CAN is a songfest about Paris in 1893 and some of its more Bohemian citizens. Aristide Forestier, a young, newly-appointed and over-zealous magistrate, decides to undertake a reform movement. The first case before him is a charge against some young women that their dance, the cancan, has violated the Paris morals code. Acting with the unique wisdom of the French, the chief judge dismisses the case because all of the witnesses seem suddenly to have had cinders in their eyes when the crime was committed and so cannot testify. Aristide goes to Montmartre to investigate the matter personally.
He gets his evidence but in the process falls in love with La Môme Pistache, the cafe proprietress. In the Montmartre we meet, Claudine, the principal dancer of the cancan palaces, Boris Adzinidzinadze, the temperamental artist whom she supports, and Hilaire Jussac, the art critic with whom Boris fights an uproariously funny duel. Aristide ends up in a police scandal which gets him disbarred. He confesses his love for Pistache, leaves the law to the courts, and joins her in teaching others how to do the CAN-CAN.
The show contains the famous Garden Of Eden Ballet, and such entrancing Cole Porter songs as C’est Magnifique, I Love Paris, Allez-Vous-En, and Can-Can flow logically from the context of the story